Monday, February 4, 2008

Not Your Parents’ Stock Exchange

When you think of the stock market, you can’t help but visualize the loud metal starting bell ringing, and a frenzy of brokers and buyers primed for a busy day of trading. Today, Nasdaq is changing the face of financial trading with an all-electronic environment.

At Nasdaq Marketsite, New York City, there is no trading floor, or even a starting bell to commence daily trading. All processes, from ringing the bell to processing deals and orders, are all done electronically through algorithmic trading technology.

That said, I guess it was appropriate that Juniper Networks, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company that provides high-performance networking infrastructure and services, was invited to ring the opening bell on Wed., Jan. 30. Juniper is a well-known name in the retail industry, and has retail customers such as bebe stores inc., Hallmark Canada and Rent-A-Center.

The Nasdaq event marked Juniper’s 12th anniversary, and highlighted the company’s milestone of reaching $2.8 billion in total revenue for 2007.

Forty-two Juniper executives and associates were present at the event. They cheered on Scott G. Kriens, Juniper’s CEO and chairman, as he rang the proverbial bell and announced Juniper’s next milestone: to keep up the pace and become a $10 billion company.